


I Won't Hurt You

by gubby



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Not Canon Compliant, Past Relationship(s), Redemption, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-18 12:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21960385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gubby/pseuds/gubby
Summary: You and Javier meet again, years after the events of Beaver Hollow, working together. And he wants you back.
Relationships: Javier Escuella/Reader
Kudos: 74





	1. Chapter 1

Some things truly never change. 

But the west, the west surely has. No longer a land uninterrupted by bureaucracy and government, where rules and morality are strictly a matter of personal opinion. In order to live in society, you must abide by what has been ascribed as wrong or right. 

In this respect, Javier has surely changed. Once a revolutionary, he now works under the government he once fought tooth and nail to overthrow. Some may call that a betrayal of the self, others simply a means by which we survive in a world we have little means of changing. Javier chooses not to call it anything, and not to think about it. It’s easier that way. 

The one thing that has remained for Javier Escuella is vanity. Not the kind that kept him well dressed and religiously groomed in his past, but the kind that drove an obsession with his outwardly projected image. The kind of man that people saw him as, and what pieces of himself he chopped up and reconfigured in order to conform to his constructed persona. This was never clearer to you than it was on the ride to the fort in El Presidio. 

“C’mon mi amor, I’m not that scary, am I?” Everything about the way he was perched on his horse portrayed relaxation, a casual banter, a question that was more your problem than his. But you knew better. “Have I really changed so much that you can no longer stomach speaking to me?” Would be an accurate translation. It was less of an inquiry, and more of a pleading. A desperate hope for second chances that he wouldn’t even know what to do with. Javier has played this persona for so long, even he no longer knows what true intentions he is hiding. But you do. 

As nostalgic memories tug bitterly at your heartstrings and whisper sweet promises of their reprise. You have to remind yourself that tempting as it is to fall back into your old ways, that Javier has done nothing to deserve a chance. He hasn’t shown any remorse for the miserable and tragic past where he played a key role. For all you know he is the same rotten man who interrogated you in paranoia and fear at Beaver Hollow, who cast cold and ambivalent glances to your anxious fits of upset, who used you for stress relief when he didn’t love you but knew you were too afraid of losing him to refuse. 

It is those memories that drive you back to a harsh, unyielding reality. One in which you can no longer afford to pretend. 

“You shouldn’t call me something I’m not. Besides, I ain’t got anything to say to you.”

To the Javier who speaks playfully and without thought, these words are more than sobering. Your disdain is painfully clear, and he cannot lie to himself when he searches for the reason behind it. It is easy to deny responsibility, to convince yourself of your own innocence and blame someone else, when you are not face to face, or rather side by side, with the person who must be at fault in your place. It was easy to accuse you of desertion and hysteria when he couldn’t see the lines carved into your face by years of pained expressions, the struggle plain in your clenched eyes and torqued lips as his mere presence forces your recollection. 

It is the Javier that loved you, and will love you until his dying breath, that cannot bear to blame you for your own inconsolable heartache and despair. 


	2. Chapter 2

He fucked it all up again. So he drank, but even the foggy reflection of his face in the dirty glass of whiskey reminded him of the monster you saw.

Things had been going well. Of course, it was nothing compared to how things used to be between the two of you. A part of him doubted that dream could even be reached, at least within his lifetime. It was lucky for him that you were a creature of adaptability and habit, he saw you resist falling into old patterns with him on the daily. Whether you wanted to admit it or not, you were starting to get comfortable, starting to passively and incrementally disregard his past transgressions.

All he did was touch you. But to you, it meant more than that, and he knew it. It was a little place, where your hip met your back. A terrible place.

It was the first place he had ever touched you without caring about you. Where he put his grip the first time he fucked you without loving you, without giving a damn if he hurt you or pleasured you, that time and a shameful amount of times after. The first place that he bruised without kissing it better the next day.

One day you had even told him. With tears and a trembling voice, absolute despair at what had become of what was once love, you told him he was hurting you. He could still hear it, and he heard it often. What was louder was his deafening silence in response to your plea.

It was all too clear how well you remembered that place, from how you flinched and turned quickly. He’d left quickly after that. But the fact that he’d left wasn’t what you noticed most. What you’d noticed most was that he forced out an I’m sorry as he did.

The Javier at Beaver Hollow wouldn’t have done that. This Javier had been forced down. He’d lost a great deal of charm, pride, morality, and integrity. But he gained all the regret in the world, and maybe, just maybe, some humility. Even if only for you.

But while drowned in liquor and his own thoughts, he’d never realize this. He was running out of energy to lift his glass to meet dry, chewed up lips. So he made a good decision, for once, and shoved his ass off the barstool and went to greet the cold winds that swept the desert at night. To be awake, if only for a while longer, instead of falling asleep only to wake up again. Another day meant facing you. Such were the perks of working with your ex.

* * *

By some miracle, Javier was able to amble his drunk ass back to the shitty boarding house where the two of you were shacked up while tracking a target. He slept like a rock, and it was your fault. Though it wasn’t in the same bed as it once would have been, you had the kind of peaceful sleeping face that made him feel comforted and warm. Like he was at home. No matter how drunk he got. So he couldn’t help himself when he passed your room. He was selfish in that way, he thought. Once again comforted by the person he deserves nothing but hatred from. 

He had a hazy dream of a memory-- his mother showing him her old, beloved wedding dress. She had teased him, telling her she had been planning to give it to her daughter, but seeing as he was her only child, she said he’d just have to find a pretty girl who would wear it someday instead, or she’d make him put it on. In reality, she had then laughed at his wild refutations of such an idea and started tickling him.

But, ever the oracle and emissary of guilt in his dreams, her expression fell, and she asked the one question that seemed to drive every aspect of his life these days: Remember? He looked to her old, cracked vanity mirror and saw that he wasn’t a child anymore, just before he woke up.

The boarding house was some shithole of a place where you were the only two staying, your only other company being the old lady who owned the place, and she disappeared to do her own business after she served meals. She was kind, and a hell of a cook, but Javier hated that she could read him like an open book with a glass cover, and he suspected that he left the two of you alone so often for that very reason.

The old assassin quickly washed his face in the water basin, avoiding looking in the mirror as much as possible. A habit he picked up recently. Trudging down the short, empty hallway, he attempted to mentally prepare himself to face you, as he always did.

He stopped in the doorway, not being prepared to experience emotional whiplash so early in the morning.

There you sat, at your spot at the table, carefully picking the sugar snap peas from your meal and lifting them in little bunches with your fork and knife, carefully depositing them in a neat pile on the plate across the table. His plate. Many years ago, Javier had once gone on a drunken tirade while forcibly laying on you so that you couldn’t get up about all manner of stupid shit. His sober self would most definitely have thought it too embarrassing and childish to bring up, but Drunk Javier insisted upon you knowing that they were his favorite vegetable, even though vegetables as a whole are “stupid” and “a scam invented to fuck with people”. He then proceeded to make loud noises in an attempt to drown you out while you patiently explained to him the concept of scurvy.

From then on, any time snap peas were a part of any meal, which was rare, you set yours aside for him. You would make a big spectacle of not doing it when you were mad at him, but you’d go right back eventually, and that was always how he knew you’d forgiven him.

You gave him the side eye upon noticing him in the doorway. You’d already started taking apart your own meal with a quiet ferocity you’d always had when served meat you had to cut yourself. Javier proceeded to break himself out of his own thoughts and try really hard to amble casually to the table, thought he wanted to sprint. The usual palpable silence hung over the room. You often didn’t attempt conversation because you didn’t want to be disappointed, while he was trying to tread carefully around your very real and justified anger and trauma. He’d lost many things over the years, but he likes to imagine he’s retained some sense of tactfulness.

Your former lover continued to stare at his own plate like a dumbass, and you misinterpreted his look for confusion. So he was more than surprised when you started to speak, one cheek still puffed with half-chewed food.

“Remember? They’re... your favorite.” You spoke with a quiet hesitancy, like with every syllable you were locked in an internal debate on whether or not to continue. “Or, they were, I guess.” You looked down at your plate, wet regret budding in your eyes, in a way that made Javier Escuella just want to fucking die. He lunged at the chance to make conversation, to draw you away from your own spiraling.

“They still are. You never forget a damn thing, muneca.” He’s sure sometimes you wish you could, though.

And the way his fork clinks against the plate as he shoving snap peas in his mouth makes you feel so bittersweet you want to cry. He’s overacting like a parent trying to cheer up a crying child. It feels so warm and lovely to have your feelings so delicately considered, but you also feel an aching sense of self-betrayal at the knowledge of who’s making you feel this way.

To tell the truth, Javier hadn’t thought of sugar snap peas in years. Not once. But now he thinks he wants to eat them every damn day for the rest of his life.


	3. Chapter 3

_‘I feel like a fucking teenager again_ ’

You leaned your head against Javier’s back, riding his horse with your arms loosely wrapped around him. You’d been grazed, and your horse was killed, and you lost quite a bit of blood. Javier tried to keep his riding gentle and easy so you could rest. You’d been so woozy and unable to keep your own mouth shut, he wrapped the wound but there was nothing more to be done while you were out in the middle of nowhere, so he was taking you back to your current safe house. 

You drooled against his dusty rawhide jacket, but it’s seen worse. You held onto him out of necessity, to stay on the damn horse and get to safety, but it still made Javier’s heart thump wildly whenever he looked down and saw your interlocked hands. 

A tear rolled down his cheek and down his neck, where it tickled at his scar, cooled by the cold desert wind. It had been such a long night. 

* * *

The blood continued to run in thick rivulets down your side, soaking the dry earth into a sickening rust color. Javier had instructed you to hold the fabric scraps against the wound and apply pressure, but your strength and attention were beginning to fail you in a major way. 

Javier scowled. Not at your failure to follow his instructions, but at how your hand fell limp and your eyes blinked slowly. You weren’t doing well. Your old lover sprung onto his heels to go tear more gauze from the clothes of dead men, but he couldn’t help how he stumbled when you croaked out, “Javi.”

You hadn’t called him that in years. He’d forgotten when it sounded like almost completely, despite how he often tried to recall it to give himself even just a scrap of emotional fulfillment on long, lonely nights. You were slurring and humming, unable to recall recent memories and clinging to older ones instead. 

“You… y’aren’t leavin’ me, right? You’d never leave me, cause you, hmm, y’love me…. S’what you always say. Right?”

He had to stifle the sobs, to shove them down as they tried to bubble up his throat. You were delirious now, he reckoned, had no idea what you were saying. But it still brought back memories like barbed quills being ripped from his aching heart. 

“‘Course I do, niña. I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

* * *

The tears were cold against his hot cheeks. It seemed like all he ever managed to do these days was cry over you. Some things, once you do them, can’t be undone. And Javier has to live with that for every day that he thinks of you. 

You laid disturbingly still before him, on a cot in what could only be described as one of your less glamorous safehouses. The rise and fall of your chest is a shallow one, and Javier can feel your pulse thrum weakly as he holds your hand. He can see your eyes moving behind their lids, and he hopes that you’re dreaming of someplace better— of _someone_ better than who you’re stuck with. He berated the selfish side of him who wants to be the only man in your dreams. 

But it is his selfishness that wins in the end. 

He plants a kiss on your lips. It’s a kiss softer than any he’s ever given. The two of you have long since had chapped lips cracked by desert winds, and yet Javier could swear he feels softness. His tears look like dew on your cheeks. 

Maybe he kissed you because he wanted to be your prince, to wake you up. Or maybe he was afraid this was his last chance. 

You dreamt of long lost love. 


	4. Chapter 4

Javier feels like he’s constantly fighting. Not in like the self deprecating way, where he puts himself down and pities himself, which he sometimes does. No, Javier is fighting the version of himself that exists in your memory, to overcome him, to make it so that you don’t have to be afraid of him anymore. 

And it’s hard. It’s so fucking hard. Inside you, he’s everywhere, he’s unforgettable, his past self is the source of not only the suffering that cripples you but also the nostalgia that keeps you breathing when you have nothing around you left to remind you that you’re alive and not just living in a dream concocted by a god-sadist. His memory is pervasive and unpleasant and unavoidable and rancid like a hot cup of vomit poured down a heating vent. It’s like there’s a body rotting beneath a hoard, but it’s poisoned you so deeply with apathy that you will never be able to reach far enough, to clear enough sentimental filth for it to be removed. Like blood lubricating gears, it has become a putrid slickness That has flown into every corner and recess of your heart and your veins until you can see it always in the corners of your eyes, just beyond your vision and yet you’re so painfully aware.

You sleep soundly in your bedroll in the small tent, with Javier sitting just outside. He always volunteers first watch, even though you never asked him to. He uses the time to think, to try desperately to solve the enigma that is your relationship. A part of him still thinks he did the right thing— that if nothing else, he had integrity in the end. But he can also see where it’s gotten him. He defined himself so much on his allegiance to Dutch that he neglected the part of him that was a lover, and in doing so neglected you. And who is here right now? Who rolls in the dust with him, watching his back and dragging his drunk ass back to whatever he’s calling home for the day? Who wraps his bandages and always heats up enough coffee for two people?

Not Dutch.

Javier is nothing if not efficient, even as a slightly older man. And he’s worked his way up in your good graces— from bastardous evil ex, to co-worker, to a begrudging friend. But every morning that he sees you against the rising sun and every flutter of your eyelids at twilight to dusk assures him that he’ll never be satisfied with just that, even if he thinks he’s less than deserving of it. You accept his flirtations now, either because you’ve realized you can’t change him or because you don’t mind anymore, he isn’t sure. He likes to believe it’s the latter.

The outlaw turns back to observe you in your sleep, to watch your face for evidence of pleasant dreams. He traces his finger down your face to reach a wayward strand of hair that he tucks behind your ear. When you first reunited, he could never have done that. You could never sleep deeply enough. Tonight though, he can see your eyes moving beneath their lids, and he knows you’re dreaming. Every so often your mouth twitches, or you murmur, something unintelligible that Javier tells himself is his name, but he doesn’t really believe it.

It’s during times like this that he can still hear the rest of the gang, like he last saw them yesterday. He can hear Sean teasing him, calling him a creep for watching you, and Karen smacking him lightly and saying it’s sweet, that _she_ wishes someone cared for her like that. Arthur telling both of them to shut up and leave you alone, lest they wake you up.

When you smile, Javier likes to pretend you’re smiling at him. The way you used to.

* * *

In bed you lie, still weak from your heavy blood loss on the last job. Javier sits on the bed, and the presence of his weight shifting the terrible mattress suddenly makes you look up at him. He looks uncharacteristically solemn, wistful. As you usually do these days, you wait for him to initiate the conversation. Javier turns to meet your gaze, leaning over just slightly, bringing on of your hands gently into his grasp.

“Cariña, do you forgive me?” He can feel moisture beginning to bud in his eyes, as he doesn’t fight the sensation. Your face almost comically displays your shock, yet you refuse to jump to conclusions that will only serve to hurt you.

“That depends. What would I be forgiving you for?” You already know, but you need to hear it.

“For everything,” he blurts, but he knows that’s not enough. “For leaving you. For choosing Dutch. For taking advantage of your love and not loving you in return, when you were scared and you needed it the most. For breaking my promise to take care of you!” The tears rolling down his cheeks feel hot, like his heart. He knows he’s near sobbing, and he’s always thought he looked ugly when he cried, but he can’t bring himself to be concerned with that. Your stare breaks him.

“For hurting you, amor.” His voice doesn’t waver despite his urge to choke. 

A part of you wants to say no. The part of you that’s a cold, hard, lonely bitch who knows better than to feel _hope_ and to _dream_ , because she knows the truth of where it gets you, she’s suffered it firsthand and she’ll be damned before she lets it happen again.

“Yes.”

She loses to the part of yourself that never _stopped_ hoping.


End file.
